Ding! One more 80 in the stable!

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Now that I’ve finally had a little bit of uninterrupted free time, I’ve been able to focus some time on “loose ends” – like leveling! With the baby crawling all over the place most days, I just haven’t been able to get any real windows of opportunity that I could make a concerted effort. Last night, though – at long last –

With an assist to Brann Bronzebeard...

So, that makes 3 now. Next up, Paladin and Warlock – currently at 73 and 75, respectively. I think the Pally will be priority, despite the 2-level advantage for the ‘Lock and the slower leveling speed, since I would really like to get a plate-wearing 80 tank; with the Warrior still clocking in at level 47, he’s too far off for now – and I’m pretty ambivalent about yet another DK tank.

I had been preparing for Hiltz to hit 80 for some time prior, investing in some pieces, trading for others, and crafting what I could as well. Consequently, she’s more or less ready to step into Naxx-10 and contribute right now, without running a single heroic. Yes, I’m still below the hit cap – 226 right now, but that will bump up 9 points with proper blue gems to replace the greens I shoved in there, and I can weasel another 40 from food to make 275 – more than enough to be effective. I think that I’ll try to find a Naxx-10 PuG Saturday morning if one is available and see how far in it gets, since even Plague + Spider wings is ok at this point.

As to leveling the Paladin, I’m still kicking around the idea of going Ret to level; the alternative is AOE grinding the crap out of everything (and that’s more feasible than it sounds!). Eusko can easily walk into a place like Skorn, round up 8-12 mobs, and tank ’em all into the dirt. The question is this: where is the most effective spot that I can do this at, because Skorn is really kind of beneath me. Ideally, I find somewhere with the following qualities:

Melee mobs – very few (ideally, zero) spellcasters or ranged

Limited to no stunning abilities

No stacking debuffs that could be difficult to contend with

High population density and respawn rate

If I can find this sort of place – I’m thinking of The Avalanche Scourge in Sholazar Basin, but thats ~2 levels off – then I can just round ’em up and consecrate / holy shield / etc the pack down. With rested XP, each mob is 1600 XP or more, so a 10-pull (which is stupidly easy with melee only) clears over 16k for the 1-2 minutes that it takes to down em and heal up afterwards. That’s substantially more than I can do questing, where I have to engage single targets all of the time, so I’m really seriously thinking about it. I ripped out 4+ bars in ~45 minutes this afternoon just pulling trash packs around Skorn, and accumulated a tidy bit of cloth (plus about 6 greens and a blue) for my trouble. I’m sure that I look a bit odd doing this, like I’ve done it by accident and I’m in distress or something, but I never even had to lay hands when I was grinding, so it’s more or less risk-free.

Anyhow, that’s about it – full clear Naxx-25 slated for sat/sun nights, maybe this is the week for the Torch of Holy Fire – we’ll see!

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Issiolak(01:16:30) :

Morning!

Sounds like a plan for the pally. I often follow a similar method for my Feral Druid. At the moment though it is only on the low level animals that give up the meats for Food Buufs. Still, groups of 8 – 12 Shoveltusk don’t take too long to kill and I was netting 170K XP per hour on them at Level 75 (rested xp).

Otherwise try the mobs elsewhere in Sholazar or maybe the Trolls/ Scourge in Zul’Drak. Either near the stairs leading in, or around the Horde base camps.

Could also try Icecrown in a few levels or the groups near K3 in Storm Peaks 🙂

Either way, congrats on another 80 and good luck with the next.
Issi..

Grats on #3, I kept my pally prot, getting 10k xp a pull with the rest XP, it went surprizingly quick, especially with the romp through the basin where they want you to kill a bunch for questing… it was sooooo easy.

Being as your paladin is 73, I found a great spot just North of Venomspite and south of the entrance to Zul’drak (In Dragonblight) alot of humanoids, no casters at all, about 5 fully concentrated camps with 12+ mobs each (excluding a small camp of about 9 which is still great experience) by the time you clear out all 5 camps, first two will have already respawned. This place was so good during the time I leveled up my Protection Warrior (Third 80 as well) that I did it from 78-80 as well, being as the Icecrown mobs were fixed.